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A TRIBUTE 



BAYARD TAYLUR 



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MARCH 8. 1879. 




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A TRIBUTE 



BAYARD TAYLOR 



AN ESSAY AND POEM 



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ISAAC EDWARDS CLARKE 



Read be/ore The Literary Society of Waskington 

at a regular meeting held at the residence of Charles W. Hoffman, Esq., 

on the Evening of March 8th, 187Q. 




WASHINGTON, D. q'.: {'^/ 
MOHUN BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

1879 



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.'Vi.;.., 



%. 1879. 



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Entered in accordance witK the act of Congress in the year iSy^^ 

By I. EDWARDS CLARKE, 

in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



THESE PAGES, CONTAINING THE TRIBUTE 



WHICH WAS SO KINDI.Y RECEIVED liV THE SOCIETY, 



AKH NOW 



RESPECTKIILI.Y DEDICATED 



MEMBERS OF "THE "LITERARY' 



'NOCTES CQEN^QUE.- 



Introductory Essay. 



As we listened a few evenings since to the thoughtful essay "On 
the influence of Chaucer upon our English tongue and our 
English thought" which was read by Mrs. Long, the accom- 
plished Secretary of this Society, my attention, which naturally had 
been drawn to the life and works of the late Bayard Taylor, was at- 
tradled to a consideration of the incidents in the story of the lives of 
these two poets, and to the likeness and unlikeness which could be 
traced between the career of this brilliant "Morning Star" of F^nglish 
Literature that rose so fair and still shines so brightly across the dark 
of four centuries, and that of our .Vmerican Poet, whose recent sudden 
death has saddened so many hearts. 

It has seemed to me fitting that some notice should l)e taken here, 
in this, "The Literary Society" of our C'ountry's Capital, of tlie great 
loss which has come, through this too early death, to our English 
tongue, to the world's treasure of literature, and to the literary fame of 
America, and I have made bold to prepare, as my requisite contribu- 
tion to the papers to be read before the Society, a simple tribute to 
the memory of 15ayar<l Taylor. Poet. Traveller. Editor, and Di])lo- 
matist. 

Between tliese two i)oets in their entrance >ipon life there existed 
great disparity One was born to fortune* and liecame allied to high 

* The recent distoven' liy Mr. Furnivall of the fact that the iioet's family hail for 
two gencralicms at least been "V'intnen." runlimis this statement, since we learn 
from Pennant, that in the time of Edward III (Chaucer's time,) the Vintners were first 
inc irporated into a fjuild and were divided among themselves into two classes, vint- 
ners and taburnarii — i. e. wholesale importers and retail wine merchants. It may aid 
us to a just conception, to recall the fact that John Ruskin, admittedly the greate-t 
writer on Art, if not the finest m.xster of English prose of our time in En;;land, is the 
son <if a wholesale wine merchant and owes to the large fortune left by his father the 
opportunities of which be has made such noble use. Large fortune and good 
position are not incompatible, even now, in our more artificial age, with being the 
son of a wine merchant. Apart from this, the fact remains undisputed that Chaucer 
was, in his youth, one of the pages in a princely household, and that later his wife 
was the sister of Katherine, wife of lohn, fourth son of King Edward. 



place — near to the throne itself: the other, had the common heritage 
of American boys; — health, social equality, industry, and boundless 
ambition. These won for him what the earlier poet found waiting at 
his service. Chaucer "travelled, both for his own pleasure and on 
diplomatic missions, to France and Italy to an extent thai was unus- 
ual at the time." Taylor likewise travelled extensively, filled several 
diplomatic positions, and held, at the time of his death, one of the 
highest of those positions in the gift of his country and was received 
on terms of friendship, for his own sake and before attaining his high 
diplomatic place, by crowned Kings and by Princes, as well as by 
his peers in the world of art and literature. 

In their death occurs a sadder coincidence ; both left great works 
unfinished. "Chaucer designed to produce fifty-eight of the Canter- 
bury Tales, he did not li<'e however to complete his design." Taylor, 
after devoting ten years to the Life of Goethe, with every facility of- 
fered him, and with every possible preparation for the work, for 
which all things seemed to have joined in fitting him, dies, leaving it 
incomplete ! So, to the early and the later poet, as to the great story 
tellers of our language, to Thackeray, to Dickens, and to Bulwer, the 
lines written by Longfellow when Hawthorne died, equally apply: 
"There in seclusion and remote from men 

The wizard hand lies cold. 
Which at its topmost s[)eed let fdl the pen 

And left the tale half told. 

"Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic Power, 

And the lost clew regain ! 
The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower, 
Unfinished must remain !" 
How often is life thus despoiled by d^ath ! It sometimes seems as 
if Fate had an especial spite against our modern age. In the realm 
of Art, for example, Fortuny and Regnault, Zamacois and Fromentin, 
appear, and glow with a clear shining brilliance that gives promise of 
an era as great as that of Raphael and Titian and Murillo, but hardly 
has the world realized their advent before they are snatched away ! 

It is, however, in their relations to the language that we may insti- 
tute further comparison between these poets. 

Our English tongue, like the sway of our English race, grows, as 
Rome grew, by conquest! Wherever it sees a province, or a w'ord, 
that suits its purpose, it takes it ! 

So, garnering of the thought of all the ages, the language has grown 



and become strong, till already it is felt to be equal to the world's 
need. Tlie countless millions of India obey edidts first uttered by 
English tongues, and English words are even now familiar on the lips 
of the sun-stained children of China and Japan ! England and Amer- 
ica, Canada and Australia! Think of what those lands stand for in the 
world's present and immediate future, if you would realize the far- 
reaching power of this wonderful birth-tongue of ours. 

To the English language Chaucer early gave of the best France had 
to give; later, in addition to the wealth of imagination and exuber- 
ance of fancy possessed by the Trouveres and Troubadours — of which 
race of free si)igers he truly was, albeit singing in a land far 
north of sunny skied Provence — he brought, as a free gift to Eng- 
land, the producftions of the art, the imagination, and the genius of 
the great Italian master of Modern Romance. 

To Chaucer, then, we owe, not only the enrichment of our tongue 
by the enlargement of its vocabulary but, a far greater gift, the im- 
pulse that created the school which gave to us Richardson and Fielding, 
Scott, Bulwer, Dickens, Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, and George 
Eliot : Cooper, Hawthorne, Mrs. Stowe, Mrs. Burnett, and the host 
of English sjjeaking story-tellers that lighten the cares of life. 

!n like manner Taylor has given to the language the gift of Goethe, 
the great German, as Boccaccio, was the great Italian! What this 
princely gift is to do for the language, it is yet too soon to know. 

Perhaps its first dire6l result may be found in "Prince D3ukalion," 
the latest work of the giver, himself still under the spell of his great 
Master; — a work which he little tliought would be his last legacy, but 
which nevertheless is one by which his high aspirations, his noble pur- 
pose, his ideal concejjtions, his mastery over poetic forms, and his 
worship of poetty, may well be tested. 

His ideal of the Poet's Mission will be found to be no narrow or 
ignoble one. He has set himself the highest tasks. He has essayed 
the noblest efforts, the grandest themes. If he has failed, he has failed 
with Shelley, along those high mountain tops of intellecflual greatness 
where the air is so rarified that common mortals may not safely 
venture ! 

To pursue this iiarallel no fiirthcr, as it was a comparison suggested 
by accident, and one which would be manifestly unjust to the younger 
man, whom no glamour, born of the remoteness of Centuries, pro- 
te(5ls, since, cut off by his too early death, he had hardly half the 
years of life which were enjoyed by the earlier poet, I propose to con- 
sider, briefly, some salient ])oints in Ta5'!or's career. 



Believers in heredity may be interested, as I was, in ;he assertion 
in a recent newspaper paragraph, that the name of Taylor came 
fourth in the list of the names that have been most prolific in their 
contributions to English literature. In this connexion we recall the 
names of Jeremy Taylor and of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, those in- 
tellecflual giants, — and wonder if our American quaker was of that 
strain. 

It is the fate of explorers and of discoverers, that the very brilliancy 
and success of their exploits and discoveries tend diredfly to diminish 
the fame to which they are entitled ; in that they have taught the 
world the new thing and therefore their wondrous exploit is soon no 
exploit at all; and soon people forgetting that the commonplace was 
ever the unknown, begin to wonder why they ever praised any one 
for doing or finding so simple a thing. So, I suppose, it would be 
quire impossible for the people of this generation to understand how 
it was that the simple story of a boy's foot walk among the Alps and 
Apennines, could have excited so much of interest as did Bayard Tav- 
lor's first literary venture, "Views .\foot." 

To go to Europe was not then an easy or a common event. Bright, 
ambitious boys and girls in their far-away country homes dreamed of 
it, but looked forward to it only as a distant, almost impossible goal. 
This boy went in the steerage to go there, went on foot, after he 
landed, because he was too poor to go in any other way; he went, 
because in him burned the soul of a poet, eager to do homage at the 
shrines of Poesy. 

He became a great traveller: he went farther towards the heart of 
the mystery of the Nile than any traveller of modern times till Liv- 
ingstone, — few now realize this, as we follow the footsteps of Living- 
stone, Baker, Speke, and Stanley; but it is, I believe, literally true. 
At a time when few travelled. Bayard Taylor went to unfamiliar lands 
and wrote of what he saw, so simply and so graphically that the read- 
ers of the New York Tribune, in which paper his letters appeared, 
wandered over the whole globe in his cheerful company. The Trib- 
une sent him, as the Herald has since sent Stanley, and for many 
years he travelled in the service of Mr. Greeley's paper. When he 
returned from these frequent journeyings, he worked hard at the edi- 
tor's desk of that paper, or he travelled about the country, lecturing — 
for his readers wished to see this wonderful man face to face. They 
knew him as the traveller — he knew himself as the poet, and chafed 
that this was to them unknown. It was not strange, for the Tribune 
reached far and wide, and the eager eyed boys and girls in countless 



farm houses learned through its columns, all they knew of the great 
world ; and they longed to look upon this friend who had been with 
them such a pleasant companion in so many strange lands. There 
was, however, another reason, a potent one, for this popular concep- 
tion of him as a traveller, and only a traveller, and it was the con- 
sciousness of this which occasionally irritated him. 

The man who makes a reputation for doing any one thing excep- 
tionally well will soon find himself hampered and hindered in any new 
work in other fields by that very reputation ; because with many, nay 
rather with most minds, the impression prevails that to label is to com- 
prehend, and therefore the first thing that is to be done with a new 
writer, or a new acquaintance, is to label and dismiss him! Most 
minds are intolerant of thought and gladly seize upon every subter- 
fuge to evade it. 

For this reason, a few ( onvenient classes, mental pigeon-holes, as 
it were, are arranged to which, at the speediest possible moment, each 
new specimen of the genus homo, properly labelled, is consigned ; and 
]>oet, philoso])her, scientist, statesman, has been comprehended, an- 
alyzed, classified and finally dis])osed of, by the poor, incompetent, 
foolish ])hilistine to his or her entire satisfacflion ! 

It has occurred to me, that the almost instin<ftive dislike that is 
often observed to exist on the i)art of respecSlable mediocrities towards 
people of genius, has its origin in just this facft, that these restless 
children of the gods disturb the pea<'efulness of those lethargic lives, 
by refusing to stay classified and labelled and pigeon holed; so that 
in the end, they come almost to hate them, because they find them- 
selves so often disturbed by this compulsion to new classification, till 
it is finally imjiressed upon their feeble intelle(?ts, that here is a crea- 
ture for whom there is absolutely no classification ; one whom they do 
not understand and therefore, of necessity, a disorderly, revolution- 
ary, altogether rejjrehensible < haratter ! 

It thus often happens that persons conscious of jiower in various di- 
re<5lion.s''find themselves ham|)ered, limited, weighted down by the 
"label" some partial admirer has foisted upon them, it may be in 
honest hero worship, or, as has been before suggested, from sheer 
mental laziness. This assumption is the converse of the classic in- 
stance of the'shoemaker and the sandal of the sculptor's figure. In 
that case the cobbler, emboldened by finding his criticism heeded, 
complacently criticised the figure in other respe6ls, but was abruptly 
checked by the reproof uttered by the indignant sculptor, " Ne sutor 
ultra crepidam" — or " Don't get above your business;" — in the cases 



6 

of which I am speaking, the shoemaker is insisting that the statue 
shall be all sandal, because, forsooth, f/ia/ he understands! 

Whenever certain men and women have done some one thing well, 
are they therefore never to be permitted to do anything else? By 
what authority do mortals thus presume to set the limits of another's 
powers? 

It was in sublime protest against such impertinence that, as Robert 
Browning so forcibly tells us: 

"Dante once prepared to paint an angel, 
Raphael made a century of sonnets. 
You and I would rather see that volume 
Would we not than wonder at Madonnas? 
You and I would rather see that angel 
Painted by the tenderness of Dante 
Would we not, than read a fresh Inferno?" 
To day, moved by a like impulse, Gerome and Leighton throw 
down the palette for the chisel: — Sarah Bernhardt leaves the green 
room for the studio. So Bulwer, having won fame as an author, 
again and again essayed in new fields, anonymously, winning ever 
new vi(ftories and unsuspedled laurels. Thus to the- world of parrots 
he demonstrated his versatile eenius; but that world of mediocre and 
captious critics has never quite forgiven him ! 

At the time of which I am speaking. Bayard Taylor had given to 
the world, in proof of his poetic gifts, two or three small volumes 
of verse, the fruit of his travels. 

The earliest one has for frontispiece an engraving of the portrait 
painted by Thomas Buchanan Read, the painter-poet, then living in 
Florence. This must have been taken at the time of Taylor's first 
visit to Italv, when he was made much of by the hospitable American 
sculptor, Hiram Powers, and his kind-hearted wife, who were glad to 
welcome the then rare visitors from home, and whose kindness he 
loved to remember, as do so many other American sojourners in that 
beautiful City of the Lilies. The picflure represents a fresh faced boy 
with slight figure and bright gleaming eyes. It conveys wonderfully 
an impression of the elastic hope and vigor of youth. 

Of those first published poems, Edgar Poe, — a severe though just 
critic, when personal likes and dislikes were eliminated — spoke in the 
highest praise and proclaimed the advent of a genuine poet. 

In these early poems, the spirit of the Desert and of life in the Ori- 
ent, possesses him. His ' 'Bedouin Love Song' ' has true lyric force and 
fire, and is as perfeft in its way, and as full of passion, as are Shelley's 



Il 



exquisite "Lines to an Indian Air." "The Arab to the Palm" wit- 
nesses to his sympathy with the needs and thoughts of the free dwel- 
lers in tents, for it is difficult to believe that it was not written by an 
Arab poet. 

In " Hylas" he tells the old Grecian story with well sustained imag- 
inative power, but it is in the "Song of the Camp," long since ad- 
mitted to be the best poem called forth by the famous Crimean Cam- 
paign, that he touches all hearts. I gi<'e myself the pleasure of 
quoting this charming poem. 

"Give us a song;" the soldiers cried, 
The outer trenches guarding, 
When the heated guns of the camps allied 
Grew weary of bombarding. 

The dark Redan, in silent scoff, 
Lay, grim and threatening, under; 

And the tawny mound of the Molakoff 
No longer belched its thunder. 

There was a pause. A guardsman said ; 
"We storm the forts to-morrow; 
Sing while we may, another day 
Will bring enough of sorrow." 

They lay along the battery side, 

Below the smoking cannon ; 
Brave hearts from Severn and from Clyde; 

And from the banks of Shannon. 

They sang of love, an^ not of fame. 

Forgot was Britain's glory ; 
Each heart recalled a different name, 

But all sang ".\nnie Lawrie." 

Voice after voice caught up the song, 

Until its tender passion 
Rose like an anthem, rich and strong. 

Their battle-eve confession. 

Deaj girl, her name he dared not speak 

B«it, as the song grew louder. 
Something upon the soldier's cheek 

Washed off the stains of powder. 



Beyond the darkening ocean, burned 

The bloody sunset's embers, 
While the Crimean valleys learned 

How English love remembers! 

And once again a fire of hell 

Rained on the Russian quarters; 
With scream of shot, and burst of shell. 

And bellowing of the mortars! 

And Irish Nora's eyes are dim 

For a singer dumb and gory ; 
And English Mary mourns for him 

Who sang of "Annie Lavvrie." 

Sleep, soldiers! still in honored rest 

Your truth and valor wearing: 
The bravest are the tenderest, — 
The loving are the daring !" 
Taylor is emphatically a healthy writer, both in prose and verse. 
There is no trace of morbidness or self-consciousness in his poems. 
The one great sorrow that darkened all his early manhood, — the 
death of his but few weeks married btide, — is traceable in such verses 
as "The Phantom" and "Autumnal Vespers," but is never obtruded. 
Of him it could have been truthfully said, as it was by Lowell, of 
Longfellow, in reference to the tragic sorrow that shadowed the life 
of the elder poet : 

"Some suck up poison from a sorrow's core 
As naught but night shade grew upon Earth's ground, 
Love turned all to his hearts-ease, and the more 
Fate tried his bastions, she but forced a door 
Leading to sweeter manhood and more sound !" 
Taylor seemed to possess the gift of tongues, and perpetually re- 
peated the miracle of Pentecost, — speaking to every man in his own 
tongue: — not only in his own language, but his own dialeft. A not- 
able instance of this facility is found in the fadl of his acquisition of 
the Icelandic, so completely during his si.x weeks voyage to that island, 
as to enable him, at the Thousand Years' Festival, to make a long ad- 
dress to the people in their own tongue. On the return voyage he 
similarly acquired the Danish language so that, on his appointed in- 
terview with the King, he reported in Danish upon his visit to that 
far-away portion of the kingdom. 



It is easv to see what an open sesame to the hearts of the jjeople 
this power ])roved to him in strange lands. 

When, in addition to the ability to converse freely with any peo- 
ple in their own language, there is also given the insight inseparable 
from the poetic faculty, and the swift sympathies which enable the 
true poet to enter into the lives and emotions of other men, it is no 
longer wonderful that this man, thus gifted, became famous as a trav- 
eller and narrator. It has been of interest to me to find that some- 
thing of this same gift of tongues, this wondrous facility in the acquis- 
ition of a foreign language, exists in a nephew of the poet ; suggest- 
ing that this special facultv mav be a family trait as well as an indi- 
vidual gift. 

How thorough was his knowledge of one foreign language at least, 
was shown to the world by his translation of Faust, admittedly the 
finest rendering of this great poem that has been made into English. 

In this masterpiece of translation is apparent, not only his fa- 
miliarity with the German, but also, not less noticeably, his mastery 
over the difficulties of English versification. These essential though 
subordinate qualities of his work, serve but to illustrate his power to 
comprehend and enter into the thought of the poet, — his great mas- 
ter, G(jethe. This work was thus a test, not only of his linguistic abil- 
ities, but of his own power as a ])oet ; for, after all, all men are tried 
by their jjecrs. Gnly those can fully comprehend the great seers who 
, stand on nearly equal heights. The greatest artists make the best re- 
productions, that is translations, of the ])aintings of the dead masters. 
Oidy the really great artists do not long content themselves with 
merely copy ing, even the greatest of the masters I 

The publication of this translation led to an enthusiastic encourage- 
ment by the Ciermans of his jjurpose of writing the life of Goethe, 
and the choicest sources of authentic information were freely opened 
to him. Much labor had been given by him to this great work when 
circmnstances compelled his return to America and he came back to 
his desk at the office of the Tribune, where he did much able jour- 
nalistic work ; the occasional articles in that journal on European 
complications which, during the past two years attracted much notice, 
are now known to have been his. He also returned to the lecture 
field, did much writing for the magazines, and was, as he ever had 
been, an indefatigable worker. 

He had served in Russia as Secretary of Legation most creditably 
and, on several occasions, had been temporarily attached to various 
U. S. legations, so that he was not unused to diplom.itic duties. He 



10 

was married in October, 1857, to a German lady, the daughter of the 
distinguished astronomer Hansen, and had passed several years in 
that country, pursuing studies in connection with the translation of 
Faust and for the proposed life of Goethe; so that, when the an- 
nouncement of his selection to represent the United States at Berlin 
was made, it was felt to be peculiarly fitting and aroused an enthu- 
siasm in both countries that was, to say the least, unusual. 

His fellow-members of the Century Club, in New York, were among 
the first to give expression to this feeling, by a banquet at wliich he 
was SLirrounded by his literary co-workers, prominent among whom 
were his life-long intimates, the poets Stednian and Stoddard. His 
old home neighbors in Pennsylvania had a great gathering in his 
honor, a hearty expression of good will and trust, which he must have 
appreciated to the utmost. In imperial New York a grand publ'c fare- 
well banquet was given, at which the venerable poet Bryant presided, 
and a distinguished company of lead;. ig citizens, ])rufe.s-.ional, literary 
and business men, were prest- u. 

Indeed from the day of his appointment till that of his embarca- 
tion he was the recipient of a coptinual ovation. How striking the 
contrast between the day when the man, thus surrounded by hosts of 
friends, went on board the steamer as United States Minister to Cler- 
ni;iny, and that other day when the boy first took his passage in the 
steerage to Europe ! How much of adventure, of labor, of useful- 
ness, of happiness, of honor and fame, had been crowded by this in- 
dustrious man between those two days ! 

It was my own good fortune to jaass several liours in fomiliar con- 
versation with him during his last visit to the Capital, just before his 
departure for Europe. Those golden liours were full of reminiscences 
of his past and of talk of his fiiturc. With what warmth he spoke of 
the kindness shown him by Powers and by other friends, in those early 
days when his fame was all to come.. His manner was as simple and 
unaffected as ever, and while he fully appreciated the honor done him 
by President Hayes in selecting him for such important duties, and was, 
as who could fail to be, much touched by the unj^recedented, siiontane- 
ous endorsement of the President's choice, which had been shown by 
all classes of people, still it was evident that the chief value he set upon 
his newly acquired position came from the prospect of the opportuni- 
ties it would afford for literary work. When once the life of Goethe, 
so long in hand, should be finished, he looked forward to the time 
aside from the duties of the embassy, which he should have for his 
real life-work as a poet. 



11 

It was as if he saw the goal for which he had so long striven, at last 
within reach. Drudgery to meet the daily needs of life in which so 
many years had gone, was almost over, and soon the leisure that would 
permit him to return unreservedly to the devotion of liis earliest love 
was to be his. It was easy to see that his love of poetry was witli him 
an absorbing passion, and I could but feel that, once freed from the 
dominating influence of Goethe — unavoidable by reason of the long 
study of his works needed for the translations and for the preparation 
of his biography, Taylor, wonderfully developed by his varied expe- 
riences and made strong by honest, unremitting work, would step 
out upon a loftier height of original jjroduction than even his most 
sanguine friends had ever anticipated. 

The passion and force of his early lyrics gave ample proof that he 
had the true poetic fire, while his re<rent ' Centennial Ode ' showed a 
vigor, breadth and philo.sophic insight, that gave great promise for the 
work of his matured powers. So, a strong conviction of his future 
greatness wa.s borne in upon me, for, as we talked, I saw, behind the 
poet, the traveler, the editor, the critic, the diplomatist, and greater 
tiian either or all of these passing phases and partial revelations of 
his personality, tlie man, with all his possibilities ; and then I knew 
why his influence was perhaps . greater even than his works would 
seem to justify; and I believed as never before, in tlie future of 
the Poet ! 

Artists and critics, have, at times, contended that in art, pure art, 
literary or other, there is no personality, and, in these latter days, 
some of our evolutionary scientific friends would fain eliminate a per- 
sonal God from the Cosmos; but in man and God alike, as it seems 
tome, there is little but personality ! Blind force is not God! Mind- 
less mechanism is not man ! Both po.ssess individual, creative will- 
power! 

Those who knew Bayard Taylor most intimately had most faith in 
his future as a Poet. Suddenly all such hopes were forever destroyed 
by the news of his death. When that news came to me I was moved 
to write the following tribute, to which the pages just read have been 
introductory : 



Memorial Poem. 



BAYAKP 'I'AYLOK. OlUIT DECEMBER 19tH. 1879. 



1. 

Slmt is the l)ook, and told 
The story of his life, 
I'hat. w ith all romance rife. 
Did e\er grander with ea( h page unfokl. 

How all his future glowed 
With gleam of regal s|)oil. 
Reward of earnest toil. 
With noble inirpose lavishly bestowed 1 

Now is the world bereft. 

Despoiled bv envious fate! 

Ah ' bads; thou lingered late 
What golden treasures wouhlst thou not have left ! 

Long did the Muses wait 

Thy pleasure, to prolong 

Such strains of mighty song, 
As, by no mortal, e'er was heard of late. 

Ah ! not alone wc pine, 

And mourn thy sudden end ; 

Immortals called thee friend, 
And weep, aliove thy bier, the tearful Nine ! 

Not ours the loss alone. 

When thou by fate wast slain : 

From his hieh brow was ta'en 
A wreath, whose loss great Goethe well may mourn. 



11. 

In our deep grief this thought 

A little solace gives, 

That in thy mem'ry lives 
The recollection of the tributes brought 

From loving hearts to thine : 

When all were glad with thee, 

Oh ! how could any see 
That Fate, which seemed so fair, was so malign ? 

'Twas well, in foreign land, 

To leave this smiling earth ; 

So, in thy jilace of birth, 
This dire word "death" we need not understand. 

Thou'rt gone, but surely, soon, 

From over land and sea. 

Shall wondrous tidings be, 
Of thv new deeds, beneath the mellow moon. 

Till then, we'll talk of thee, 

Recount th)- early days. 

And all the wandering ways 
Of the brave boy that dared the land and sea! 

I'l. 
In .\l|)ine valle>s high. 

Beneath the Tuscan vines. 

On slopes of Apennines, 
The\- still recall the boy with laughing eye 

As, in the flush of youth. 

With eager step and look. 

His happy way he took, — 
Seeking, in manv lands, to learn life's truth. 

In temjjled Hindustan. 

On China's crowded shores. 

Or, where the ocean ]jours, 
.\round the fairv isles of far Japan ! 

To mystic lands in quest 

Of Nile's great secret hid. 

Or 'neath the Pyramid. 
Where smiles the Sphinx, her 



riddle all unE;uessed. 



u 

L'liuii that piirpl'j sea, 

Across whose gleaming wave, 

The Grecian galleys drave. 
Hurling 'gainst Priam's towers Fate's dread decree 1 

That wondrous sea, whose wa\es 

Gave empire, where its kiss 

Woke the sad shore to bliss 
And life exultant glowed, where now are graves ! 

Where the stout Argo came, 

And where proud Persia's lord 

Smote the white surge with cord ; 
And where ^'Eneas saw Trov town aflame ! 

Cam'st thou with New World eyes. 

Kach storiei.1 land to scan. 

But most th\' t'ellow-man. 
Whose heart to thee, heat true 'neath each disguise 

Whether of speech or skin ; 

From thee he could not hide. 

So true thy heart did hide. 
So warmly throh. tliy manl\' hrcast within ' 

In Syrian valleys fair. 

And on the mouinains grand 

Where the great <edars stand 
That lift, nn I.ehanon. their niighlv houghs in air I 

Where the Crusaders ( ame. 

And where, for ages long. 

Pilgrims with praise and song, 
From many lands have come, naming One Name. 

To sad Jerusalem — 

Where, on grav Olivet. 

A presence lingers yet ; — 
A kingly form, with thorns for diadem ! 

Then, to the rock hewn tomh 

Where, at the Master's word. 

The dead to life was stirred i 
.\nd the dark grave, for aye, forgot its gloom ! 



I.j 

Along those steep Ij.ire hills 

Which guard that inland sea — 

The sea of Gallilee I 
And slowly pacing, l)y the shady rills 

Where lilies grow, and where 

One loved of old to walk 

With friends, in friendly talk. 
Whose voice still echoes low, along the ambient air ! 

The Muezzin's cry, was heard 

From mosque and minaret, 

What time thy feet were set 
III fair Stambaul, whose crowdeil streets were stirred 

With strange delight, to see' 

Such grace of careless voiith ; 

An Arab sheik, in truth. 
They deemed this infidel from o\er sea ! 

The streets of Alliens knew 

The bright adventurous \mv. 

Whose heart leaps high with joy 
To be, at last, beneath her skv of blur. 

Td stand where heroes stood : — 
Sure, ujver pilgrim came 
Whose soul was more aflame 
With rapr devotion and the heroic mood. 

Willi blazing eves, I wis. 

Beside the Parthenon 

'l"he bov stood, gazing on 
Tile scenes that lie beneath the .Acrojjolis. 

There, smiles the ^'Egean wave. 

While here, as in a dream, 

'I'hrough groves of .-Kcademe. 
The broad-browed Plato walks, serene and grave !' 

Again, from thronged streets. 

The long jirocession winds. 

Whose locks the fillet binds. 
When Pallas, high-enthroned, her votarv greets. 



'I'o his em banted eye 

Temple and fane arise, 

Perfect, 'neath sapphire skies ; 
For, to the Poet's heart, beauty doth never die ! 

ZT^ looks on hill and stream. 

On earth, and sea, and sky, 

The same, that met the eye 
Of hero, poet, sage, of whom we dream ! 

Back roll the ages gone ; 

While, from their deathless tomb. 

The crowned immortals come. 
To gladden, with their smiles, the elected one ! 

Thus, to this poet true, 

Athene's children came. 

All those of deathless name 
He saw, beneath her temple's dome of blue 1 

He saw 1 and evermore, 

Where'er his footsteps strayed. 

His loving vows were paid 
At that high shrine, beside the .^igean shore ! 

1\'. 
In every age and (lime, 

Whate'er their speech or race, 

Tne reverent eye may trace 
Athene's children down the stream of time, — 

Moulded of finer clay 

Than other mortals are. 

Clear as the morning star, 
That heralds to the morn iliviner ilay. 

Their lofty souls, afar, 

Stream o'er life's stormy waves, 

As, when the night wind raves, 
The sailor marks the light serene above yon harbor bar ! 

Y. 
The Norsemen knew liini well ; 

True son of Viking he ! 

Sweeping o'er land and sea. 
Long of his prowess high, the\' to their sons shall icll ! 



17 

How has his exploit rung ! 

When, o'er the Wintry seas, 

Far north of Hebrides, 
Sailed he to Iceland, greeting in Saga tongne. 

All the glad people, who, 

In their far island home. 

Girt by the icy foam. 
Had, for a thousand years, kept their hearts true ! 

VI. 

East, through hot desert waste. 

Where plods the caravan, 

A sudden tremor ran ; — ' 

The blind presage of grief that comes in haste ! 

West, neath the ocean wave, 

A direful message came ; 

A withering flash of flame ! 
And hope was dead, and love was in its grave ! 

The bell, that tolls thy knell 

With sad low note of woe. 

In measured tones and slcjw ; — 
To all the tribes of men, their loss shall^tell, 

lint most to those who dwell 

Within this mighty land. 

That gave into tJiy hand 
Its trust and power — in thee confiding well ! 

Then unto those who weep 

Around tliy bier; who bring 

Laurels and palms, and sing 
In German words, Death's cradle song of sleep ! 

Farewell : Our tears no more 

We shed : for it must be 

That all is well with thee. 
In the new worlds thy eager eyes explore ! 



OFFICERS AND MEMBERS 

OF 

The Literary Society 

OF 

WASHIN(;T0N, D. C, i87S-'7g. 



PKESIDENT. 

Hon. Charles D. Urake, Chief Justice U. S. Court of Claims. 

VICE-PRESIDENT. 

Mrs. Admiral Dalilgren. 

SECRETARY. 

Mrs. R. Cary Long. 

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 



The President. 
The Vice-President. 
Tlie Secretary. 
Miss E. K. .rohiiiiton. 



Dr. Cones. 
Professor Gill. 
Professor Hofl'man. 
Dr. Toner. 



LITERARY MEMBERS. 



Brig.-General B. Alvord, 
Paymaster-Geni-nil U. 8. A. 

Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett. 

M. le Marquis de Cliambrun. 

Col. I. Edwards Clarke. 

Mrs. Chapman CoU-mau. 

Elliot Coues, M. D., U. S. A. 

Chris. C. Cox, M. D., LL. D. 

ilrs. Madeline Vinton Dahlgren. 

Mrs. Anna Dorsey. 

Hon. Charles D. Drake. 

E. M. Gallaudet, Pli. D., LL. D . 
President Xat. Deat'-Mnte Coiles'e. 

General .James A. Garfield, M. C. 

Professor Theodore Gill, 
Smithsonian Institution. 

.1. M. 



F. V. Hayden, M. D., Geolog. Survey. 
Professor Ciiarles W. Hoft'man,LL.D., 

Librarian l>a\v Lilirary of Compress. 
Miss Elizahetli Bryant Johnston. 
Mrs. F. W. Lander. 
Mrs. Dr. N". S. Lincoln. 
Mrs. R. Cary Long. 
Col. Garriek Mallery, U. S. A. 
Mrs. Rieliard B. Mohun. 
M. F. Morris, Esq. 
Brevet Brig.-General All)ert J. Myer, 

Cliief fiignal Dflieer, U. S. A. 
Mrs Mary Nealy. 
Mr. John G. Nicolay, 

Marshal V. 8. 8u])renie Court. 
Mr. Charles Nordlioff. 
Toner, M. D. 



ARTIST MEMBERS. 

Miss Bryan. Mr. E. C. Messer. 

Mrs. C. Aclcle Fassctt. Mrs. IiiU]ji;eiie Eoliinsou Morrt'll. 

Mr. Tlicoilorc Kanfinuiiii. Miss Rausoni. 

Mr. E. H. Milkr Mr. Max VVeyl. 

Mr. Hfiiry Ulkc. 

MUSICAL MEMBERS. 

Mrs. I.oiiisi- K. Caiii|i. Miss Goode. 

Professor Caiilfleld. Madame dc Hegerinami Liiidciu-ioiic. 

Hon. t'arl Schiirz, Secretary of the Interior. 

HONORARY MEMBERS. 

'I'lie President of tile I'nited States. The Secretary of the Sniitlisonian 
The Cliiet Justice of tlie Supreme Institution. 

Court of the United States. Mr. W. W. Corcoran. 

The Speaker of tlie Honse of Rep- Hon. Alexander Stepliens, M. C. 

resentatlves. Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes. 

The Attorney-General of tlie V. S. Mrs. O.u'lc Tayloe. 

FORMER MEMBERS. 

hiti'njri/. 

Dr. Sig'isinund Rudolph Bliini. Mr. J. (j. Howard. 

Mrs. M. E. P. Bouligny. Mrs. Alice D. Smith. 

Miss Esmeralda Boyle. Mrs. Emma D. E. .V. Soiitliw ortli. 

Mrs. Eliza A. Dupiiy. Miss Annie W. Story. 

Miss Florence Fendall. Miss Amelia M. Strong. 

Miss Mary A. Henry. , .James C. Wellina;, LL. D., 
Professor ,1. E. Hilganl, Ph. D., etc., President Cohimhi;m University. 
U. S. Coast Survey. 

.I/Y/V. 

Mr. Peter Baimigras. Mr. AValter Paris. 

Dr. David Kimlelberger. U. S. N. Mr. .1. II. Witt. 

Mr. Will. .A. Potltr. Mrs. Jlary Isabella Robeson. 

Miss Mildred T. Willing. 



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